With the holiday season in full swing and the Christmas movie calendar providing plenty of entertainment, many people have been indulging in their nostalgic traditions. Whatever those traditions are, however, they probably don’t quite line up with Taylor Swift and her family, as she grew up on an actual Christmas tree farm. The Pennsylvania native released the single “Christmas Tree Farm” in 2021, recounting her time growing up there and how wonderful the holidays were, even if they involved plucking praying mantises from trees, as evidenced by a reposted interview.
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon shared a YouTube interview of the “Fortnight” singer on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon in November 2009, in which she talked about growing up on a Christmas tree farm. She admitted that while she couldn’t do any heavy lifting as a little girl, she did share that she had a pretty important job:
Actually, cutting down trees wasn’t my job because I was about five years old. But they put me to work. There are bugs called praying mantises that lay eggs and they make fruit on Douglas fir trees. That’s the tree they like to invade the most. Bet you didn’t know that! That’s when I got involved. I would walk around the Christmas tree all day and pick them and put them in, like a little basket, so people wouldn’t have bugs in their house. It was a lovely little hobby for a kid.
Pulling mantises off trees isn’t something Swift shares in her Christmas song, and while it may not sound like the coolest job for a kid, she doesn’t seem to mind. Plus, being surrounded by all those trees probably makes me feel like it’s Christmas every day, and knowing she did it so people wouldn’t have bugs in their homes probably makes me feel like it’s worth it, or at least less disgusting.
In 2014, Taylor Swift talked about her family’s tree farm in an interview with Esquire , looking back once again at her childhood in Pennsylvania. Unsurprisingly, she revealed that it only made her love the holiday season even more. I can’t say I blame her, even if she did have to pick bugs off trees as a child:
It was a strange place to grow up. But it cemented in me this unnatural level of excitement about fall and then the holidays. My friends got really sick of me talking about fall coming up. They were like, ‘What are you, an elf?’
As for Swift’s own Christmas tree, it’s unclear what tree she puts up each year and in which house. I suspect she still checks the tree for praying mantises out of habit. At the very least, growing up on a Christmas tree farm would have made her either love or hate Christmas depending on how much she enjoys the holiday, and it seems she still does.
Unfortunately, while Swift loves the holiday season, it doesn’t count for much on her record-breaking tour. The set list of every surprise song she sang on Eras includes many of her most poignant records, but despite some of the shows taking place in December, “Christmas Tree Farm” didn’t make the cut. Additionally, she has yet to release a re-recorded version of her holiday EP, The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection . While the Eras Tour is over , there’s always the possibility that a holiday EP will be re-recorded in the future, among Swift’s many upcoming projects . In any case, her Christmas spirit will certainly be alive and well, even if her memories involve a lot of praying mantises.
